


Lucky Number

by greenkangaroo



Category: Naruto
Genre: Brother Feels, Childhood Trauma, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, or lack thereof, suna is not a fun place to grow up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2018-08-08 10:00:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7753258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenkangaroo/pseuds/greenkangaroo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you can't sleep because of the demon in your head you tend to get a lot of paperwork done, and there are some interesting things buried in all those old mission reports.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Overture: Paperwork For Kazekage

**Author's Note:**

> This work originally appeared on fanfiction.net under another name. While the fic is complete, each chapter is in the process of being edited and, where needed, adjusted to better fit Naruto's canon. I was proud of it when I first wrote it. Here's hoping I can be proud of it again.

After the death of the Fourth Kazekage the offices of Sunakagure had been, understandably, in a state of almost terminal chaos. 

Morally bankrupt and desperately short-sighted Rasa might have been in the end but he had done his fair share and there was no way to get out of admitting that. Even as Suna's coffers dried up, the Fourth had managed the everyday affairs with a firm hand and grim determination. It took that kind of stoicism to handle the whole mess. There was always paperwork- for budgets, for meetings, for meetings ABOUT the meetings, to assign someone to kill someone else who said something they shouldn't have at a meeting. 

(For all their pride at being a nin village focused on the accomplishment of the mission, they certainly did take their time arguing about it.) 

If he'd known how much paperwork was involved in becoming Kazekage, perhaps the current holder of the station would have thought twice. 

Alas, along with great power, forms filled out in triplicate were also important to being the leader of a hidden village and a leader was what he wanted to be. So, with grudging respect for the man who never allowed his sons to call him Father, Fifth Kazekage Sabaku Gaara sat down at his wide wooden desk every morning and got to work. 

There was a betting pool going on down in the Missions office regarding how long it would take Gaara to wade through the paperwork left behind. The smart money was on a matter of weeks. After all, the Fifth didn't have to _sleep._

Even with this monumental advantage, however, there were some things Gaara couldn't afford to be worried about. Those older files were left in haphazard piles while the issues of the moment took up precedence. Late at night, when he had finished the immediate paperwork, Gaara would sometimes turn his attentions to these older tasks, stubbornly wearing away the walls that encroached on his space. The activity kept his mind from wandering (and a certain unwelcome mental roommate from making unreasonable and bloody demands) until the sun crept over Suna's rooftops.

Tonight was one such night.

The windows of the office were rattling. A sandstorm was rolling through; a smaller one, wouldn't last more than two hours, but every housewife in Suna would be out with their brooms the next morning, waging war against the elements. In the midst of a series of old requests from the deeper desert tribes and reports on the viability of several new spots for digging wells Gaara discovered an anomaly.

Namely, a Jounin personnel file.

 _Sabaku Kankuro_ was written on the tab across the top, the seal of the Red Sands Playhouse stamped in the lower corner to indicate that the ninja in question was a member of the puppeteer brigade.

How this particular file had wound up in the pile-of-stuff-to-bury-in-sand-so-Baki-wouldn't-fret-over-it, Gaara wasn't sure. Perhaps he needed a better filing method than 'depth of sand in which this particular pile will be buried'. He was certain that his older brother's missions file was something he should keep handy, seeing as Kankuro was a healthy jounin and, barring any incredible unpleasantness in the future, would continue going on missions for quite some time.

Idyly curious, Gaara flipped the file open.

_Name: Sabaku, Kankuro._

_Age: 17_

_Rank: Jounin_

_Affilation: Puppeteer of Red Sands Master_

_Blood Type: B_

_Height: 6' 1"_

_Weight: 134_

_Team Members: Sabaku Gaara and Temari_

_Teacher(s): Mitsuki Baki, Elder Chiyo, Mitsuzaka Kadaj._

_Missions:_  
_C Rank: 9 Complete_  
_B Rank: 10 Complete_  
_A Rank: 23 Complete_  
_S Rank: 1 Complete_

Gaara allowed his eyes to scan the information, taking it in. Most of it he knew. As Kankuro's default Team Leader, he had committed almost all of it to memory when they had unwillingly formed a team together at the beginning of their genin days. From Kankuro's specialized puppeteer training with Chiyo and Kadaj to his puppeteer Mastery, it was all old news.

Except for one thing.

The A rank listing was not correct.

It couldn't be. The siblings as Team Baki had only gone on twenty A rank missions, and most of those had merely been a case of 'Kill everyone and get out fast' meaning that while his brother and sister had stood by and kept an eye out, Gaara had decimated everything in his path. Very basic, cut and dry. Most of them hadn't even been officially listed until a few months ago. 

So why did this file assign Kankuro at twenty three A ranks?

It could be a clerical error. A lot of things in Suna had been given a lick and a promise after the failed Konoha invasion, and this had to be a newer copy of Kankuro's file, removing some of the blackouts and reassessing what counted as top secret. One hairless brow quirked and curiosity moving from idle to intense, Gaara flipped through the other papers in the thick folder. 

Medical reports, examination results, poison diagrams...soon Gaara reached the mission reports, uniform pieces of paper with the same fill-in-the-blank format. The D rank reports were all written in Baki's neat, militaristic handwriting. As the missions got harder and they had learned to fill out their own paperwork, Baki had handed the reports over to the three of them. The copies of the C and B rank missions were all in Kankuro's surprisingly elegant calligraphy.

Gaara scrutinized them. They were the same ones Kankuro had shared with his siblings, to make sure their information was accurate before turning the reports over to the missions desk. Here were the A class missions; again, all neat and aristocratic, barring the few swearwords his brother liked throwing in for shock factor.

Gaara picked up the last three pieces of paper in the folder. Like the other forms they were filled out in his brother's unmistakable hand yet each and every one had a client and a name that Gaara had never seen before, and instead of the Missions office insignia stamped into the provided space each was marked with the seal of the previous Kazekage.

Meaning these missions had been assigned to Kankuro personally. By their father.

This concerned Gaara. While pre-Konoha he and his siblings had never had much in the way of familial connection, in one thing they had always remained united, and that was the hatred of the man who had sired them. They had lamented him together (well, Kankuro and Temari lamented while he devised various methods of bloody execution in his head) and they had taken on his assignments together.

A seal of the Kazekage meant one of two things-a Black Sand mission, or a solo mission. Kankuro, ambitious and half-cracked though he was, had managed to stay out of the Black Sands' special puppeteer division, citing that the rules were too rule-like. So at some point, without either his brother or his sister's knowledge, Kankuro had been assigned missions alone. 

Gaara arranged the three reports side by side, steepling his hands in front of him. The sandstorm outside scraped over the conical roof of the Kazekage tower, barely rattling the windows.

He began to read.


	2. Act 1, Set The Scene: Assassination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: violence, mentions of/allusions to incest, psychological manipulation. Please be cautious.

"And then, well, you know father, he- GOODNESS!"

The girl walking down the street gave a soft cry of surprise as a heavy shoulder plowed into hers. Her attendant caught her by the arm and from the alleyways that lined the street armed soldiers swarmed. Once she had straightened, the girl turned in a huff to face the man who had knocked into her. He stood surrounded by sharpened swords, emerald eyes wide and lined with smudges of cockeyed khol. He was dressed in a rough cotton hakama and his nose was badly sunburned. He bit his lips nervously and she could see a tremor working through his legs. 

"I- I-I'm sorry," he half-slurred his words, tried for a bow but couldn't get far with the sword to his neck. "M-my clumsiness is unforgivable." He glanced at the soldier holding the blade to his throat and whimpered. 

The attendant opened her mouth to retort when the girl tapped her shoulder with a powder white hand. 

"It's alright. You apologized, so there is no need for punishment." The girl's voice was soft and firm and coiled under her sun umbrella. "You may go."

The soldiers all pulled back but none relaxed. 

"Oh, thank you," the boy said adamantly, bowing repeatedly as he turned to leave. "Thank you so much!"

He practically ran down the street, half-tripping over his straw sandals. The girl gestured and the soldiers at last retreated, leaving only her and her attendant in the street. Around them, foot and cart traffic continued as usual. It was as though nothing had happened, which was the best way many of the city's inhabitants had found to react to near-miss executions. 

"Lady!" her attendant admonished. "Why did you let him go? He very nearly knocked you down! YOU, the only daughter of the Lord Arakida!"

"Rei, didn't you hear the way he was talking? And his clothes? The poor boy looked backwards- and besides, he had pretty eyes."

The woman inhaled sharply. _"Lady Miya!"_

"Oh, stop it. Father isn't here, I can say what I like about the men around me."

Rei sputtered and fussed for a little while before finally grabbing hold of the Lady Miya's arm and practically hauling her through the streets, aggravated at the delay in their errands and the inevitable scolding she would get from members of the household should the noblewoman be late for her lessons. From a shadowy corner, unwatched by soldier or passerby, the boy who had run into them watched them go. 

His too-wide mouth quirked into a smile that would make demons shudder.

"Oh, stop it." He mimicked, and the voice that came from his vocal cords perfectly matched that of the lovely Lady Miya. He resisted the urge to scratch at the red makeup caked thickly on his face. He would have time to wash it off later, when night had finally fallen. For now, his plan needed adjustments. He oozed further into the darkness and no one on the busy street would give him much thought, which was preferable. He'd hate for all that training to go to waste. 

\---

Kankuro watched through narrowed eyes as the guards changed rotation for the third time. No doubt someone had been well paid to design the routes and overlap the patrols to keep out such unscrupulous fellows as himself. That was all well and good, but he wasn't a thief out for the family silver.

No, he sought a different prize.

The sun finally dropped below the horizon, casting long shadows on the thick stucco walls of the Arakida Family Compound. Kankuro shifted his shoulders, sliding from the long drainage pipe he had been laying in like a snake emerging from the underbrush. A whisper of wind and he was gone; hardly a footprint remained in the soft sand.

Kankuro crawled with ease up the walls. The moon was waxing and against the stucco, with the pale light shining, his white-painted face would appear as merely another half-shadow. The only purple on him was the paint on his lips. Everything else was white, save two small grey dots over his eyebrows- a genderless noh mask, the solo mission design. Kankuro had to go to one of his elders in the Playhouse to learn it. He'd chosen Frog, who had a streak of kindness the desert hadn't managed to beat out of him. 

At the top of the first wall, Kankuro took a moment to crouch and observe. The lucky strings were vibrating for him- there was a long, thin servant's ladder (Wind Country Nobleman's hired help rule number one, never keep servants who leave their ladders behind) just waiting for someone to come along and climb.

Kankuro obliged. At the top of the ladder there was a narrow walkway. He traversed it easily, hooking his fingers onto the red tile of the roof and pulling himself up seconds before the next guard rounded the corner.

The Arakida were an old-blood noble family, wealthy and well placed with several holdings in Wind Country. The current head of the clan, Matsuo Arakida, had increased his family's wealth and lands by brokering contracts between various villages under his jurisdiction and hidden nin villages.

Too bad none of those contracts had the Suna hourglass on them.

Doubly unfortunate that most of them had Konoha's leaf. 

Kankuro crawled up the roof, eyes settling on a far window that still burned with a candle flame, though it was long past the time for working. He'd taken a copy of the compound's newest layout that very afternoon, committed it all to memory, like a good little ninja. That was the room he wanted, he was certain of it.

Once he was settled between two storage room windows Kankuro made a series of seals in quick succession. Bandages began rolling over his shoulders and down his chest to wrap neatly around his middle. Free from its wrapping Karasu ghosted over Kankuro's head to sit in front of him. Though his stomach was churning, Kankuro couldn't help but grin at his puppet. It looked like an obedient student waiting for a lecture. 

Tied around Kankuro's waist was a pouch, an elongated leather water bladder; he reached behind him and opened it up. Sand poured out and guided by chakra strings began pooling obediently in Karasu's cloak. Bits and pieces of it still glittered with Gaara's chakra. It was mostly old chunks of discarded sand armor scooped up by a shrewd puppeteer when the death threats had concluded and his brother had turned his attention to other things. Gaara had marvelous moldable chakra. 

"Now then," Kankuro said to Karasu, "Let's get you gorgeous."

He twitched his fingers and the sand traveled up, coating his puppet's face and arms as his other hand moved through a series of genjutsu signs. The client wanted it traumatic. The client wanted it messy.

Ninja Rule Number 45: The Client always gets what they want.

\---

The knock on his office door was soft, gentle. This late in the evening, it could only be Miya. Matsuo Arakida blinked the fog from his eyes and looked up.

"Enter."

She slipped into the room like a whisp of smoke, her smile small and hesitant as it always was when she visited so late. "Father?" she asked. "Why are you still up?"

Matsuo slid a hand across his desk, pushing a folio on top of the documents he had been studying. "Work waits for no man, my dear." He beckoned her forward. Amongst his many possessions, Miya was his most prized. She was beautiful, well bred, well behaved. She sat obediently by his side, plucking nervously at the long blue sleeves of her kimono. He let his hand rest warmly on her thigh. Her own small hand covered his.

"Father?"

"Yes?" he asked, turning to look at her, shifting closer, feeling comfortably warm.

"Why would you betray your country?"

He froze.

"What?" he asked harshly, pulling his hand back. Miya stood, looking at him with her usually empty, elegant eyes. "Why would you betray your country?" she asked again, clasping her hands behind her back.

He stood, pushing back his chair and giving his daughter a considering look. Cold began to curl in his gut. Who had reached her? Who had corrupted her? How quickly could he ascertain the damage and contain it? 

"It's all just politics, my darling." He said, approaching her slowly lest she panic and run. "You recall the special lessons that-"

"I hate politics."

Arakida stared down at his daughter- at the long, thin knife that had emerged from her wrist, the mere quarter inch not buried in his stomach shining with a very light purple substance. He coughed up blood, dark and slick.

"Don't ever betray Wind Country, father." The girl whispered, wrapping her knife-free hand around him and hugging him close. "I don't think I could take it. It makes me so sad."

The softest of clicks and he jerked his head back with a garbled shout as his daughter's embrace became sharp; she pulled away and he fell, staring up at the six horizontal knives which had emerged from her breast.

"It really would make me sad, Father." She said, covered in red, staring down at him, grinning, "So you won't do it ever again, will you?"

He coughed, stared up at her. One arm moved, beseeching her and she knelt with a nod, pulling his head into her lap. She brushed his hair away from his face like a good daughter would.

He tried to say her name, but it came out a garbled gurgle. 

She smiled, leaned over. "Promise me." She sing-songed.

He tried to speak again and instead began coughing, shaking. Once the fit had subsided he nodded. 

"Good."

She leaned forward and slanted her mouth across her father's and everything was going to be okay because his Miya still loved him and he could keep his promise as soon as the newest contract was signed, minor upsets were to be expected in well-bred ladies such as her-

Arakida didn't register the soft clicking noise, though it was the last thing he heard. He certainly didn't feel the needle poking out of the back of his skull, at the bottom where neck met head. When Miya pulled away she allowed her jaw to rehinge itself; a swallowing motion brought the long poisoned needle back down her throat.

"Father?" she asked with a girlish giggle, patting her cheek and spreading his blood across her neck.

No reply.

Miya seemed to consider her father's position, then stood up. She turned and reached for the desk lamp. She knocked it over, took the papers he had tried to hide from the desk, and walked back into the dark as the flames slowly started eating away at expensive lacquers and veneers.

Miya emerged in a servant's hallway. Beside her, another body emerged- a white faced ghost with a black hood and emerald eyes. Kankuro held his hand over her head and curled the tips of his fingers ever so slightly. Miya collapsed, strings cut. Chakra charged smoke dispelled the illusions and sand grains dribbled from her face, running obediently back into the leather water bladder. 

Kankuro picked up the papers Karasu had retrieved and stowed them away. He surveyed the mess on the front of his wooden monstrosity, then flicked a finger; the bandages wrapped around his middle flew out and began slithering around the puppet. 

The ninja shouldered the marionette. It was time to go. Any second now someone would smell the smoke. The Arakida had their own personal firefighters on guard. 

Paranoid, the lot of them.

Kankuro wondered if anyone would find Miya.

Probably not. There was plenty of space in that drainpipe.

She was pretty. Maybe he'd base a puppet off of her.

Kankuro managed to wait until he was outside the city, safe from prying eyes and having his cover blown, before he forced himself to hurl. It felt like the right thing to do.

\---

Gaara considered the paper. Every detail had been written out as concisely as possible. He could almost hear Kankuro's standard 'mission drone', hands locked behind his back in parade rest as he recited the assassination step by step.

Arakida's death had been reported the morning after it had occurred, with demands, complaints- why weren't any of your people there, how could this happen, did you hear how they found his daughter?

Gaara remembered the Fourth holding up a hand and saying in that voice that he wished wasn't so much like Kankuro's, "What's done is done."

Gaara reached for the next report, refusing to note that his hand was trembling ever-so-slightly in the soft light of his desklamp.


	3. Act 2, Rising Action: Extermination

Note to self: Face worms spat acid.

...really, really NASTY acid.

Kankuro glared down at his upper sleeve, which was persistently smoking despite his best attempts to stare it into submission. After patting vigorously at the material he peered around the large rock he had chosen for cover. 

His target was writhing on the sand, making a noise akin to mica being ground between two large stones. The poisoned dust he'd blown at it was apparently not a problem, more an annoyance. 

_It'll be easy, they said._ Kankuro thought to himself as he tried to keep track of the legs. _Just a faceworm problem, no sweat. I'm gonna kill Dragon._

Faceworms were one of the Desert's many hidden dangers. Carnivorous beasts resembling the centipedes of Fire Country on a frighteningly massive scale, faceworms dug colonies with numbers ranging from five or so to twenty, and they had appetites that matched their size. Faceworm juveniles, caught in raids on colonies, were brought to Suna where they were pitted against the more talented genins in betting pools disguised as sparring matches. More than one of Kankuro's acquaintances (for he had no friends) had lost an eye or worse to a baby faceworm.

None of them had ever had to size up an adult.

"Shit," the puppeteer repeated in a chorus as he dug through another pouch for smoke bombs, "Shit, shit, shitty shit- AHA!" he pulled two out and flipped over easily, balancing on his toes as he watched his enemy.

She was thirteen feet if she was an inch, a queen faceworm; old and without a colony, but still hungry enough to stalk a tribe of the inner Desert's nomads. Her mandibles and long lower horns surrounded the handsome features of one of the Tribe boys she had not yet fully digested. Her twenty spindly legs were clicking, making sounds not unlike Karasu and Kankuro wished bitterly for his weapon but such sophisticated puppets were useless against something that big, in an area with little cover and no backup.

Kankuro tested the wind and pulled the pin on the bombs, tossing them over the rock. They landed a few yards away from the worm and burst, sending a wave of acrid black smoke over their small battlefield. The creature screeched in irritation as the smoke invaded her weak, milky eyes, clogging up her sensitive sense of smell. Kankuro was already running, chakra powered to his feet to keep from sticking in the unforgiving sand (And damn it if Gaara were here, then there wouldn't be a problem, because the sand always hardened up for Gaara, like running on a cobblestone road-) moving fast and low, a black blur against endless golden dunes.

The worm twitched, turning. She could barely smell the solo mission paint.

Kankuro reached for the scimitars crossed on his back.

A jerk to the left, a slash to the right, and the worm was lacking in six legs. Her turnaround radius was just large enough that he ducked underneath her, shuddering at the feel of sharp exoskeleton across his back, rolling up on her other side as she screeched. The dead face she was using opened his eyes- in life, they had been blue; a half blood, not fully of the desert's stock- and opened his mouth.

The acid spat out in a harsh stream, but this time Kankuro was ready and dodged to the right, hands running through transport seals, bringing him back once more to the outcropping (If he made it out of this alive, he'd give the thing its own personal plaque, and then he'd commemorate it and maybe plant a shrub that might survive in this gods forsaken sun.)

Her massive tail slammed down by his shoulder; he jerked away, staring fascinated at the large, wicked looking barb dripping bright orange fluid onto the sand.

The wind, an ever-changing constant, began shifting slightly, lifting the edges of Kankuro's cowl, in the same way it did when Temari was about to open her fan. He blinked, inhaled and tasted ozone and hot dust, and for a single instant in his mind's eyes Kankuro saw the flash of dead green eyes and the hoarse command to 'Move, trash.'

He swore.

_Sandstorm._

The worm couldn't sense it coming. She was concentrating on finding the wretch that had blinded her.

Kankuro slid his scimitars back into their sheathes, watching the dune closest to him. The rasping sound was getting louder, an echo of millions of sand grains rattling together. He reached under his gloves, pulled at the white wrappings tied around his forearms. They were acid-burned, but still serviceable. He reached for two kunai, clenched them in even white teeth.

In the playhouse, there was a calming exercise they used before taking the stage. Dragon had taught it to Kankuro when he was five, a series of counting, taking in breath to the count of seven, holding it for seven counts, then releasing it to the same count. Kankuro felt his breath fall into this rhythm as he tugged a pair of goggles down over his eyes.

The faceworm would be helpless, her sense of smell still besotted by the smoke, her weak eyes blinded by the storm.

This was crazy. Stupid and reckless, Temari would call it. Foolhardy, Baki would say.

Gaara wouldn't say anything.

The storm raged over the dune like the pictures of tidal waves Kankuro had sometimes seen in books. The sun was blocked out, sudden shade warning the creature that all was not right. The wall of sand hit like Baki's windsword, but Kankuro was no ill-seasoned child; he was the son of Yondaime Kazekage, a puppeteer of Red Sands. He had survived Sabaku-no-Gaara. He kept his feet steady and got ready to move. 

Blinded by the grains of sand, the worm began to curl, going into defensive mode. She never saw the little black creature she had been hunting leap over the rock it had been hiding behind, running straight for her.

The wrappings shot out like ribbons on chakra strings, their ends tied to narrow-bladed and wickedly sharp suna kunai. Once, twice, three times each they wrapped around the middle and back of the worm, jerking at Kankuro's direction into the rock he had been using as cover. With a surprised screech, the faceworm found itself hogtied, its long body no longer of service.

Moving around the sand, with the sand, Kankuro let the wind carry him over the bound faceworm. A single scimitar, burrowed into the softer midsection of the worm's body, stopped his ascent. Hand spikes were produced, chakra pushed to feet. He crawled up, past the spasming legs, to the single dented crease between armored back and neck.

The scimitar came down, smooth as glass. The sandstorm's tail end scratched over his shoulders and down his back as the worm gave a single protesting screech and spasmed, head severed from body. Kankuro jumped from the carcass, performing a somersault that brought him just out of reach of the spray of blue-black blood.

The storm had passed and the sun returned to find puppeteer victorious. 

The head had to be returned to the tribe of Deep Sands Nomads who had hired the village's services, as proof that the creature had been shuffled off the mortal coil. Kankuro was pleased with his acting skills- not a hint of emotion as the blue eyed boy's mother screamed over what was left of his face, still balanced between the faceworm's huge jaws.

The Tribe Elder looked at him for a while, after all the mourners had gone.

"You," he informed the painted wraith from Suna, "Are fearless."

Kankuro had to blink at that one. "What makes you say so?" he asked tonelessly, waving off the young medicine woman who had been seeing to his arm.

"The storm passed us by. It must have hit your battlefield. Yet here you stand, and here the worm is, and you are alive. Do you fear nothing, ninja hidden in the sand?"

Kankuro considered. 

"Old man," he said, with a small smile, "Fearing nothing is stupid and reckless. Knowing WHAT to fear, now- that's another thing altogether."

The old man nodded slowly, eyes hidden beneath thick white brows; he had lived a long time in this forsaken place. "You are wise, ninja. Beyond your years." He gestured towards the head, which lay on a copper plate on the table of his tent. "Take the horns, then, and the tail. You have earned them."

"In the name of Sunakagure I would be honored," Kankuro said, and he knew that the Elder knew he was full of shit but he took them anyway. That barb had all kinds of potential. 

His bounty in a sack on his back, Kankuro walked home under the light of a full moon. Reflected in its face he saw a tanuki curled in sleep.

When he walked through the arc of the Kazekage's tower he was almost relieved to see Gaara perched on the roof, red sash flying like a banner in the soft wind.

"Right where I left you." He murmured with something dangerously close to affection, and went to find some sleep. 

\---

Gaara turned the paper over.

He had commented only a few days before on his brother's scar- the gritty, scraped mark on his upper arm that looked so much like a sand burn Gaara wanted to be positive that it hadn't been he who had done it.

"No," Kankuro had replied, with habitual smirk and halfway wink, "No, little bro, I promise it wasn't you."

Gaara leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand across his eyes. For a moment his heart clenched and he almost placed a hand over it, but the days when that was habit were slowly becoming dim memory.

There was one more report to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a couple of references that should be addressed in this chapter. 
> 
> 1\. the faceworm is loosely based on a similar monster from Avatar: The Last Airbender.  
> 2\. Kankuro's breathing technique, while utilized in many different ways, was in my case lifted from Tamora Pierce's Winding Circle series of books.


	4. Act 3, Climax: Infiltration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: prostitution, implied forced trading of sexual favors, death, destruction, all that jazz.

"You're very good at that, Yukio!"

The brunette blinked up at the pretty girl who had spoken, a blush crossing his features as he fumbled with the coarse cotton strings he'd been attaching to puppet hands and feet. "Naraku taught me how." He said, unable to look her full in the face. The girl laughed, tossing her long hair. "You learn quickly then! Keep travelling with us and we'll make you a master puppeteer in no time!"

The boy smiled sheepishly as he laid aside the marionette strings. The girl offered her hand and he took it, standing up. They headed down the hill towards where the traveling troupe had circled their colorful wagons. She separated from Yukio and headed for her fellow dancers, who called out greetings and waved their filmy scarves at her.

"Stop flirting with the new boy, Kaede!" one of her friends said. "You're gonna scare him off before the rest of us get a shot!"

"It's sort of cute," said one of the others as she flicked her filmy scarf through the air. "He blushes like a sunburn as soon as you say something to him."

Another senior dancer laughed. "He might be cute but that never kept anyone's bed warm. Now come on, let's get this routine down or that old bitch will have our heads before we make the next town in Fire Country."

Kaede nodded turned in a quick circle, looking for where she had dropped her scarf before going off to talk to Yukio.

"She's quite the flirt, isn't she?" 

Yukio looked up to see Kuro. He was one of the jugglers, with a broad grin showing a missing eyetooth. Yukio smiled. "I guess." 

"There's no guess about it," Kuro chortled. "Come on, let's get the ropes set up before we move the wagons."

\---

The criers had arrived a day before Genji's Players and the town was already buzzing with excitement. This was a boon for it mean other groups hadn't come in some time and the money would be good. The morning was spent drumming up even more excitement (a job perfectly suited for the prettiest of the dancers in their best looking silks) and setting up the makeshift performance area. As the sun was going down the troupe assembled around Old Naraku's purple wagon. She sat on the bottommost rung of the steps and gave every one of her people a steely stare.

"Now listen to me," Old Naraku's voice was hardened and sharp by many years on the road. She didn't need to speak loudly to be heard. "We need to make enough tonight to get to the land of Lightning, so if you've got it, flaunt it, don't be stingy." she made a broad gesture with a clawlike hand. "Do what you have to, you don't want us to starve, do you?"

The assembled performers nodded. Yukio crouched in the corner made a small dismayed noise. Naraku turned her grizzled gaze to him. "Boy? You have something to say?"

Yukio flushed and looked at his knees before shaking his head.

"I didn't think so." Naraku said.

The play they performed that night in front of the town's only inn was a simplistic one full of bawdy humor and dirty limericks, things that pulled the money in without a lot of effort. Their masks were peeling and their costumes had patches but with the notes of a flute and the whisper of silk it was as if they were on the finest stage in the land.

Behind the pageantry the other members of the troupe bustled, lifting sandbags and rattling pieces of metal to make lightning, flapping fans for wind and shaking gourds for rain. Yukio hauled ropes and easily ducked and wove in the careful half-dark of the backstage area. The flicker of the cheap lanterns used to light the performance lit his eyes up like pinpricks in the dark.

Naraku drove a hard bargain. Many grumbled over her prices for seating but they left smiling, and some of them didn't leave at all, enticed behind the brightly painted wagons by the dancing girls or boys. Naraku thought she spied a few mixed hitai-ate in the midst of the civilians; it didn't worry her.

She understood ninja.

The next morning Genji's Players packed up their equipment and hangovers, bound for the next town and the next show and the next coins. 

No one noticed or perhaps no one cared that they were one member short. It wouldn't be the first time a newcomer disappeared in the dead of night after realizing that living on the road was nothing like they imagined.

\---

When the first of the wagons started down the narrow gorge that led over the border into the land of Rain, the few guards kept their eyes peeled. There were bigger prizes than a travelling theatre group, but bandits didn't tend to pick and choose, especially this close to the Land of Wind. 

"Good weather for it, huh, Kuro?" Kaede asked the man sitting beside her. 

He smiled. "Yes." He said. "A cloudy sky. Perfect." 

A moment later Kaede, side dotted with red, slumped off the wagon and down a small embankment. Kuro took hold of the reins and spurred the two horses into a brisk trot. 

"Kuro, where's Kaede?" Another wagon-rider asked. 

Kuro shrugged. "She stopped to take a leak so I told her I'd leave her." He grinned. "And I told her if I was nice enough to be slow I expect something _good_." 

The girl smirked. "It'll be a cold day in hell, Kuro." 

Kuro leaned in close. "Don't be so sure." 

The thin, fine sword that emerged from Kuro's neck cut through the other girl like a spade digging out a chunk of earth and caught her driver in the shoulders. Kuro smacked the rump of their horses. The bodies fell and the animals took off. 

It was bedlam. Wagons began crashing into one another in the narrow gorge and people were shouting. Kuro rolled his wagon forward with a face frozen in abject terror. A few of the guards threw themselves in front of him, assuming his horses had spooked. He trampled them and continued on. 

It was Naraku who smelled a rat and Naraku who spurred her own animals down the path. She didn't look back to see two of the wagons burst into flames, their valuable stores of powder ignited. She didn't look back to check on the screaming dancers or the frantic strongman trying to lift a wagon off of his best friend. 

By the time the poisoned gas canisters hidden amongst the rocks at the end of the gorge activated, trapping the last of the troupe in a thick green fog, Naraku was long gone. 

\---

Her horses were exhausted and so was she. At a bend in a creek Naraku slowed the animals, let them heave and drink as fast as they could. In her head she was doing calculations. How many of the wagons were salvageable? How much had she lost? Could she get another group together before the snow began to fall, keep to her schedule? How was she going to spin this for the Raikage?

Naraku's ears were old and her exhaustion worked against her. She didn't hear the woodbox on the back of her wagon opening. She didn't see the man crawl out- the man in black, face painted white with two gray dots above his eyes. 

She didn't see him draw up lithe like a spider. 

She didn't see Kuro walking through the forest towards her, half of his workworn clothes burned, eyes shining strangely red. 

Naraku didn't see anything.

\---

Not all of the wagons had burned which was an aggravation Kankuro didn't need. All the cheap paint layered on them, he'd figured they would go up like dry tinder. Apparently someone in the troupe had been smart enough to apply an indigo wash every once in a while. He wasn't happy to dip into his toolkit but dip he did and he made them burn.

He left the bodies where they fell, added a few artistic touches like taking melted jewelry and half-charred bank notes, bundling up silks and tools into a sealing scroll. There were so many bandits in the area and the gorge was a terrible choice for a group so large. Obviously easy pickings. Someone with a few fire arrows got out of hand was all. Anyway what bandit band this close to Suna would admit to being paid off in Kumo money?

Kankuro wanted to be sure and hunting down the bands would take too long. He left a few evil eyes scattered around, none-too-few abstract images of waterfalls painted in blood. He felt a little bad for using his brother's reputation, but a good puppeteer could pull off a performance with whatever they had at hand.

The stage was set, the curtain primed to fall. What few scrolls had survived the destruction were ready to be returned to the Suna archives. If Kankuro went at it hard he could be home in the next day and a half, maybe get some real sleep before he was needed again.

He looked over the carnage. Up above he could hear vultures circling. He doubted there would be much left of the troupe before anyone found them. He swept his cowl off his head and gave a deep bow.

"Genji's Players, you've been a marvelous audience." He said. "Thank you and good night."

\---

Gaara stared down at the report.

_"Information smuggling brought to a halt. Salvageable intel returned to cipher division. All involved eliminated."_

Neat, concise, elegant. Each letter perfectly aligned in a hand trained by the most skilled teachers one could afford.

All involved eliminated.

Gaara felt sand fill his palms as his fingernails began to break skin.

the Kazekage stood up, easing out from his chair and pushing it in. He gathered up the mission reports and slid them into their folder before tucking it under his arm. He rose one hand to his forehead, activating his personal transport jutsu. When the sand cleared he was standing in front of a plain wooden door in the deepest part of the citadel he'd shared his whole life with his father, his sister, several minders (many of whom had wound up dead) and his brother.

For a moment Gaara hesitated. The light of the nearest hallway lamp almost seemed too harshly bright, like the flash of Kankuro's smile in the dark. Gaara knew his brother was in, could feel the faintest brush of Kankuro's chakra against his mind, a greased whisper to Temari's forceful gust.

He rose his hand to knock-

-and the door opened.

Kankuro leaned against the door frame, wearing a black robe and one of his 'at home' paint designs, two long streaked purple lines from his eyes to the bottom of his cheeks. In one hand was a habitual kunai, in the other a carving tool. His gaze flicked from Gaara's face down to the folder his Kazekage was holding. In the hard light his emerald eyes looked old.

"I was wondering when you'd find those." He said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter changed the most from its original draft which I found needlessly dramatic, and I hope it satisfies.


	5. Act 4, Falling Action: The Puppeteer's Lucky Number

"Well?" Kankuro shifted fluidly away from the doorframe. "You coming in or what?"

He said it so carelessly but still Gaara hesitated before stepping over the threshold. There was a time these rooms had been off limits to him, or as off limits as could be managed. Nothing had ever stopped Gaara if he wanted to enter a space, but his particular brand of nihilistic ennui had meant he spent more time avoiding his siblings than bothering them.

Gaara beheld arguments between brothers and sisters with wonder now. How strange it seemed, that one should have a shirt the other called theirs, that toys and nintools and even the task of doing the dishes were matters for debate and disagreement. Neither Temari nor Kankuro would have dared take his shirts, if any fit, and they would rather have done the dishes themselves than risk bringing his ire by interrupting the neverending stream of violent thoughts Shukaku provided him. 

That was then. 

Gaara closed the door behind him and followed Kankuro into his domain. His space was shaped differently than Temari's, up high where she could open her windows to the breeze. It consisted of three chambers, the first one connected to the others by a short hallway. As Kankuro lived below street level (the cool dark being better for the clay and wood he used in his puppets) long thin windows vented air. 

The first room of the set was basic- a ninja's bedroom with bed, dresser, and table. Several scroll racks were lined up along the walls and on the wall closest to the bed was a single set of hooks. This was where Karasu lived when not in use though the puppet had its own sealscroll just like all of Kankuro's others. 

Karasu was special. 

Kankuro led his Kazekage through the bedroom and the small hallway, seemingly oblivious to the close quarters. As a child the puppeteer could move easily through the passageways but age had added a few feet to him, and Kankuro's broad shoulders almost brushed the walls. Gaara followed close behind and they entered the first of Kankuro's two workshops. 

This was the puppet room. Heads, torsos, limbs, some painted and some not, all hung from the ceiling on hooks. Against the far wall by the cubbies that held gears, pegs, screwdrivers, mallets, chisels and other sundries was a ladder meant for the retrieval of the parts. The lights in this room were brighter than the bedroom, almost too bright. Kankuro had clearly been working if the pile of shavings surrounding a large wooden block on the table was any indication. 

Beyond the table and the ladder, the cubbies and the cabinets and the hanging puppet parts, there was another door. It was closed with a large lock and several nasty surprises. No one but Kankuro ever went in there. 

Kankuro sat down on the bench, gently shifting the puppet aside and patting the space beside him. Gaara sat as well, laying the three pieces of paper out neatly in a fan. Kankuro brushed them with long fingers.

"Can you explain these?" Gaara asked.

Kankuro rose a brow. "What is there to explain? They're mission reports. You've written enough of them."

Gaara's eyes narrowed as he recognized an old game Kankuro once played, keeping hurting places safe by deflecting with ease. "Kankuro." He said firmly. "Consider it an order from your Kazekage. I want an explanation. These are all solo missions given to you while you were on a team with Temari and I."

"Genin can be assigned solo missions," Kankuro says. 

"You know what I mean, Kankuro," Gaara replies.

Kankuro leaned forward, studying his handwriting. "Mission replacement." He said. "You know the rule."

Gaara did. In other hidden villages a ninja could turn down any mission- ill health, a personal affiliation with the client, the list was endless. In the Hidden Village of Sand, which was in constant peril of losing both patrons and funding, no nin was allowed to turn down a mission- and those few foolish enough to try were often given missions much harder than the one they had been assigned as replacements.

"You turned down three A ranked solo missions?" Gaara asked, a tinge of disbelief coloring his tone. His brother was an unapologetic glory hound and he reveled in fieldwork. Age had given him experience and would yield yet more if he survived to his thirties, but the mission reports were not yet seven years old. Solo A ranks? Kankuro would have been on it like- what was that phrase Gaara had heard in Konoha last- white on rice. 

Kankuro nodded. "Pretty much." He said with a smile. "Didn't feel like it, you know?"

"And what," Gaara said, "was so boring that you found more stimulation in assassinating a political leader, single-handedly defeating a faceworm, and destroying an intelligence leak by collapsing a travelling troupe?"

"I never said it was boring, Gaara." Kankuro corrected. "I just didn't want to."

"And you wanted to do these things?" Gaara asked. It's a loaded question. They do not live peaceful lives. The very makeup of their culture depends on the kind of violence that was written in those reports. These were successful missions that someone should have congratulated Kankuro for. 

Did anyone? Gaara knew his brother had few people he considered friends. Had any of the puppeteers offered to buy him a drink, had any of his yearmates from survival training looked him up after he returned? Had a whisper of these missions found Temari on the wind? Perhaps he was the only one who hadn't known yet the way Kankuro was avoiding his gaze told Gaara otherwise. 

"A job is a job, Gaara. If you were to assign me something like this I'd do it too."

"Stop it."

"Stop what?" Kankuro asked.

"Stop stalling, stop evading me," Gaara said bluntly. "Stop trying to spare my feelings, whatever you think they are. You will tell me what missions you replaced and why. And you will tell me now."

Kankuro leaned back and sighed so deep his shoulders sagged almost in an upside-down V. In the too-bright light his paint seemed to stretch, like the mask of an oni in a play. Kankuro leaned back against the table, thoughtful, afraid. Gaara watched in quiet fascination as one his brother's carefully constructed masks was disassembled and put away. 

"It wasn't three different missions." Kankuro said quietly. "It was the same mission three times."

Gaara felt his blood run cold.

There was only one running mission in Sunakagure.

\---

_"No."_

_The Kazekage looks up from his desk, sharp emerald eyes catching an identical set that face him. The young puppeteer stands at complete attention but there is a determined set to his jawline, his too-wide mouth a thin line._

_"Excuse me?" the Kazekage purrs._

_"I refuse the mission." As an afterthought, "sir."_

_The Kazekage steeples his fingers, one elegant eyebrow lifting as he looks the genin over. "Did you just refuse a mission, ninja?" he asks, and his voice is the sound of a desert viper's scales sliding over rock._

_"Yes sir." The young puppeteer responds. "I did."_

_"Well then." The man looks over the pile of documents before him. "Let's see if I can find a suitable replacement."_

_He shuffles the papers at an agonizingly slow pace but the blackclad boy doesn't move an inch, face as firm as though it has been carved in stone. Only when his Kazekage holds out a folder does he move._

_"The Arakida have been bleeding us for far too long. The client..." the Kazekage pauses, as though relishing the words. "wants it painful. We must give the client what they want, Kankuro."_

_"Yes, sir." The puppeteer replies, turns, heads for the door._

_"Kankuro?"_

_He pauses. "Yes, sir?"_

_"I hope that you'll think better next time. You disappoint me."_

\---

Kankuro took the papers from where they sat under Gaara's limp hand. He began looking them over. "Oh, Arakida. That really was a shame, even if he was bangin' his own daughter. Smart dude but he threw in against Dad and we all know how that ends."

\---

_The second time Kankuro is summoned to the Kazekage's office for a mission assignment, there is yelling, two raised voices almost alike in pitch and volume. Someday soon they will be indistinguishable from one another._

_When Kankuro leaves the office with his mission orders, no one meets his eyes._

_He waits until the sun has gotten a little lower in the sky before he heads for the Red Sands Playhouse, notes his intention to spend the night in the logbooks, and goes to the southern practice courtyard._

_They aren't used to seeing him so late._

_"Crow?" one of the Journeymen asks, his blue painted face concerned._

_"Dragon, have you seen Mantis?" Kankuro asks, smile big and eyes empty. "I need to study up on faceworms."_

\--

Kankuro slid a mission report between his fingers. "That first faceworm seemed so terrifying, you know that? But I've killed twenty since. Hell they ask for me special now. I'm running out of places to put the barbs."

\---

_"I had hoped that by now you would know better."_

_"I'm a bit of an idiot like that, sir."_

_"You won't get any argument from me."_

_The papers are offered; he takes them._

_"Discovery means death. Memorize it."_

_"Yes, sir."_

_The wagons are stopped at a village just outside of the capital city, too cheap to perform within but perfect for the tiny towns that have sprung up along the road. A beautiful girl dressed in red approaches him._

_"Yukio? You're Yukio, aren't you?" he nods, and she assumes he is too scared, or perhaps awed, to speak. "Oh, good. I'm Kaede. I'll introduce you to Naraku. She's our Troupe Master. Bitter old bitch, but at least we make money."_

_Yes, Kankuro wants to tell her. Yes, you do._

 

\---

He read the last paper, eyes soft. "Poor Genji's players. They weren't the best, but they were pretty good."

He looked up.

Gaara was staring at him.

He quirked his lips in a puppeteer's smile.

"Mission 102398-B." He recited. "Open to all Shinobi of the Hidden Village in the Sand, to be assigned at any time. The assassination of the container of the demon Shukaku." Kankuro shrugged. "Probably woulda' tried to assign it a fourth time but then we had that crazy idea to take over a village hidden in some leaves somewhere. Three always was my lucky number."

Sand whirled around the room, mixing with sawdust. Kankuro's arm came up to shield his eyes in a motion that had long ago become as much a habit as breathing. When the dust finally settled, Gaara was gone.

Kankuro glanced at them and then stood up, walking back through the corridor to his bedroom. He sat on the bed and looked up at Karasu, who was grinning grotesquely at him.

"Think I should go find him?" he asked. The puppet's wooden jaw clicked.

"Right. Lemme find my shoes."

**Author's Note:**

> There have been enough quick flashes of Kankuro's space in canon that I know it looks only vaguely as I have described. The original draft of this fic conjured a much more dramatic space. I tried to stick with that even as I toned it down. I have a special place in my heart for over the top architecture as plot device.


End file.
